NEWSLETTER - JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2000

The curtain raiser at the December meeting was given by
former society chairman Professor Ian Copley. He presented a selection
of the photographs taken by Lt. Gibbes of E Company, 2nd Battalion,
Northumberland Fusiliers, when serving with Maj-Gen. Clements' 12th
Brigade in the Magaliesberg Valley. Juxtaposing the 100-year-old photographs
with recent ones taken in or near the same locations showed an interesting
comparison between how the countryside looked then, and how it appears
now.

Lt. Gibbes was taken prisoner at the Battle of Nooitgedacht in December
1900, but was later set free and turned up in Pretoria at the end
of March 1901. Thereafter he served in other theatres of the war,
mainly in the Orange Free State. He was present at the construction
of many of the forts there. The pictures are from the regimental archives
of the Fusiliers at Alnwick , Northumberland.

History portrays the Battle of Nooitgedacht as a military
disaster resulting from the incompetence of Maj-Gen. Clements, who
commanded 12th Brigade in the Magaliesburg valley. Considerable unpublished
evidence indicates another point of view, however, and this was presented
in the main lecture given by Peter Goodship.

Clements was accused by Kitchener of making a poor strategic choice
of position when he decided to site his camp on the farm of Nooitgedacht;
at the foot of the Magaliesburg scarp, and of selecting it for mainly
the wrong reasons. He was also blamed for failing to prepare adequate
defences; distribute ammunition; gather intelligence; maintain alertness;
and post effective sentries and patrols. But this view is based solely
on Kitchener's despatch of 16th January 1901 to the Under Secretary
of State for War, when he was not adequately informed of the facts.
He may also have had ulterior motives.

Clements' intelligence came from impeccable sources, namely four British
1820 Settler families who, for 40 years, had occupied four farms in
the Magaliesberg Valley. Two members of the family served Clements
as scouts. Clements had been very effective in bringing stability
to the Hekpoort area until November 1900, when his force had been
stripped of units required for service elsewhere. His difficulties
were compounded by the unwieldy command structure employed by GHQ
in Pretoria, which left him confused as well as under strength.

When he fell back on Nooitgedacht, he was in desperate need of men,
supplies and firepower if he was to carry out his orders to support
Maj-Gen. Broadwood and his cavalry brigade operating north of the
Magaliesbergs, and to clear the Hekpoort Valley. When the Boer generals
Beyers, Smuts, De la Rey and Krause attacked on 13th December 1900
with their 3 000 commandos, Clements had only 1 200 men under command,
not all of them combatants. Reinforcements from neither Krugersdorp
nor Pretoria had reached him.

A combination of poor communications and the unaccountable behaviour
of General Broadwood , who should have been close enough to lend support,
contributed to the subsequent debacle. So did cumbersome and inefficient
staff work, and Kitchener was Chief of Staff... This could have accounted
for Kitcheners subsequent attempts to shift the entire blame on to
Clements, and to keep his report to the War Office from Clements'
eyes. The preponderance of shortcomings that rendered (Clements) defeat
inevitable were attributable to GHQ, Kitchener and Broadwood, Goodship
maintained.

The curtain raiser at the 20th January lecture meeting
was given by committee member Heinrich Janzen on the Battle of Isandlwana,
22nd January 1879, when a Zulu army inflicted the worse defeat on
a British army in the whole of Britain's colonial history. Lt-Gen.
Lord Chelmsford, who planned the British invasion, commanded a total
of around 18 000 men, of whom 5 476 were regulars. He divided his
force into three columns, which were to converge on the Zulu king
Cetshwayo's capital at Ulundi. Chelmsford himself commanded the centre,
and largest column, which crossed the Buffalo River at Rorke's Drift
on 21st January and camped on the east side of a sphinx-shaped hill
called Isandlwana, a few miles inside Zulu territory.At 4.30am the
next day Chelmsford led an advance party out of the camp, leaving
behind about 1 300 men with two of the army's six guns. Later that
morning a detachment of cavalry came across the main Zulu army of
about 20 000 men concealed in a valley north of the camp. The Zulus
had not intended to fight that day, but having been discovered, they
attacked immediately, employing their characteristic encircling tactics.
The British formed line with their backs to the hill, but were gradually
overwhelmed. Only a few mounted men escaped the trap. Heinrich closed
his talk with the suggestion that the Zulu's famous victory be honoured
by the inclusion of Isandlwana on the colours of 121 Battalion, the
Zulu Regiment, the direct descendants of the Zulu army that fought
that day.

The main lecture of the evening was given by former society
chairman George Barrell, in the role of Lt-Gen. Lord Methuen who commanded
the British Army's 1st Infantry Division at the Battle of Magersfontein
in December 1899. It is the duty of a general to win his battles,
and when he loses one he must take full responsibility, as Methuen
did. However, any British officer who believes he is being blamed
unfairly for his actions and decisions can demand a court martial
to clear his name. Methuen was never openly accused of negligence
and incompetence, as Clements was, and he never demanded a court martial.
But had he done so, the case he would have made in his defence would
probable have gone something like this.

The case against Methuen was that he delayed too long before going
on to Magersfontein after his victory at the Battle of Modder River;
that he adopted the difficult tactic of a night march in order to
get his troops as close as possible to Magersfontein Hill without
being detected; that he virtually announced his attack by his artillery
barrage the previous day; and that he did not foresee that the Boers
would use trenches. Methuen claimed that the delay was necessary in
order to rest his troops; to give himself time to recover from the
wound he had sustained at the Modder; and to allow for repairs to
the railway. A night march had been successful, despite difficulties,
in a previous battle at Belmont. In any case, it was the only expedient
available to avoid an attack over open ground commanded by the Boers
rifles. An artillery barrage was an accepted tactic for softening
resistance, and he would certainly have been blamed had he not used
it. It did not warn the Boers because they expected an attack anyway.
Finally, nothing gained from previous experience had led him to believe
the Boers would use trenches when high ground was available, or would
not eventually retreat when faced with a determined bayonet charge.

The St Helena Line, which operates a regular cruise service
between Cape Town and St Helena Island, is to repeat its highly successful
September 1999 Boer War Commemorative sailing, departing Cape Town
on 9th March this year and returning on 27th . For details call (021)
425-1165 or fax (021) 421-7485.

Members who served in Italy in WW2, and those interested
in the military campaign in that country, should note the publication
of a new book entitled From Sicily to the Alps, comprising personal
accounts and recollections of the fighting in this theatre. It is
written and compiled by Glynn B Hobbs, and is available from Mallard
Publishers, P.O. Box 36012, Glosderry , 7702.